The invention concerns a packing film for foodstuffs, especially for meat, sausage or fish products, wherein the film is well suited for consumption, and for increasing resistance to tearing, a net lies on the film.
Such packing films have a wide application and represent a high grade substitute for natural gut. In addition, they are also suited for packing foods which one cannot stuff into natural gut owing to their size or shape. They are generally suited for packing all types of protein-containing foodstuffs, wherein they can enter into a combination with the food protein. Basically, it can be a matter of animal or plant protein.
But the packing films described are not especially resistant to tear. They must therefore, as long as they have not yet joined with the foodstuff protein, be handled carefully or be reinforced by additional measures. A widely used measure for protection of the film consists in surrounding it with a net which is in a position to absorb the weight of the foodstuff and the forces arising during processing.
Thus, for automating sausage manufacture, the sausage mixture, film and net can emerge directly from a double filling tube. But difficulties arise here, in particular when the film is shaped as a tube or the like. Hence, up until today, one cannot reliably guarantee that the edges of the film will overlap uniformly and be sufficiently firmly connected with one another. As a consequence of this, holes or tears can still often occur in this area, from which the meat or sausage filling escapes. The filling then attaches to the net by coagulation and is partly torn out when the net is subsequently removed.
Moreover, the process described is very expensive, regardless of whether the protein film is covered manually or automatically with a net.